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Mir's GPLv3 License Is Now Raising Concerns

06-19-2013, 07:40 PM

Phoronix: Mir's GPLv3 License Is Now Raising Concerns

Taking a break from blogging about UEFI and Secure Boot, Linux kernel developer Matthew Garrett is now writing about how Canonical's choice of license for their Mir Display Server is a bit scary. It's not the GPLv3 license alone that's raising eyebrows, but the GPLv3 combined with the Ubuntu Contributor's License Agreement that is unfortunate in the mobile space...

And the hits just keep on coming. You know, they say when there's no clear option, the best thing is to do nothing. I think I will just sit back with some Popcorn for the next year since it's clear we are not at the end of the street yet.

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Well, that much was obvious from day one. And it isnt just a problem with Mir. We've already been through all of this with Nexuiz. I would have thought people would learn their lessens when that mess happened.

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Taking a break from blogging about UEFI and Secure Boot, Linux kernel developer Matthew Garrett is now writing about how Canonical's choice of license for their Mir Display Server is a bit scary. It's not the GPLv3 license alone that's raising eyebrows, but the GPLv3 combined with the Ubuntu Contributor's License Agreement that is unfortunate in the mobile space...

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GPLv3 requires users be able to replace GPLv3 code if they would like... thats an issue on mobile and is considered VERY anti-carrier. If they can get hardware manufacturers on board thats fine, but few carriers will like the idea of their users screwing with the software.

The CLA is very anti-opensource because it means that if you submit a patch to Unity or Mir that you have to assign copyright to Canonical. Since Canonical is the only copyright holder it means they can release, for example, version 1.6 of Mir, and then make 1.7 and forward closed source. They can never take away the sources for 1.0 -> 1.6, but they can make any future development closed source.

This is anti-developer because many open source devs will only submit to projects that they know ARE open source and will REMAIN open source, the CLA makes it so it IS open source now... and it MAYBE will be open source in the future.

You could ask these large telecoms what they are smoking... But I don't think corporations are as paranoid as those who feel that the existence of a competitor to wayland is the cardinal sin of our age.

Yet more FUD leveled at Canonical, mere speculation on possible worst case scenarios without any real basis in fact. Yawn. I look forward to running Mir with proprietary driver support soon.